I fear Mrs May’s plan for a green legacy is as doomed as her lost Brexit deal

THERESA MAY will certainly not leave office with the Brexit legacy she would have liked, but she is determined to bequeath something for us to remember her by.

Yesterday, she announced that Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to zero, or almost zero, by 2050 — an undertaking that has not so far been matched by any other developed country.

Many environmental groups have welcomed the new pledge, though one or two have said it will be too late. Among the young, who are usually the most exercised about climate change, Mrs May’s parting shot will no doubt be wildly popular.

Previously, the UK had agreed to cut its emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050, which was considered a tall order. So this is a big further step. It is, in fact, a revolution.

What does it mean? No one is really saying because no one really knows. But it is probably safe to predict that meeting this new legally binding target — which has yet to be approved by Parliament — would transform the way we live our lives.

For one thing, it would cost an enormous amount of money. The ever- cautious Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has plucked out the figure of £1 trillion, which is more than half our existing national debt.

He has warned the Prime Minister in a leaked letter that the burden on government would be so great — shutting down old carbon-producing industries and so forth — that there would be less money for hospitals, schools and the police.

However, as we have discovered throughout the Brexit saga, once Theresa May has made up her mind about something, she is apt to dig in her toes and not to budge. Mr Hammond’s anxieties appear to have been batted aside.

It’s not just the prospect of public spending being diverted from vital services that should worry us. There will be other immediate consequences if Britain is to meet its new self-imposed obligation.

WE will all of us have to get rid of our gas boilers. Will the government of the day compensate us, and help us buy expensive eco- friendly alternatives? I rather doubt it.

Petrol and diesel cars will also be sent to the knacker’s yard. That means ubiquitous electric cars. It seems to have escaped the notice of many environmentalists that the exponential rise in battery manufacture necessitates ravaging the earth for new sources of minerals such as cobalt, nickel and manganese.

When Mrs May’s plans come to fruition, the number of flights we are allowed to take could be rationed. We may even be told to eat less meat since the belching of livestock is said to be responsible for about 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

All in all, our lives are set to be transformed. One could speculate that the upheaval promised by Mrs May yesterday may ultimately throw our current Brexit convulsions into the shadows.

Many people will nonetheless

say that all these sacrifices will be worthwhile if they help to reduce global warning. Were all the countries of the world to act together, this would be a reasonable thing to think.

But the truth is Britain’s carbon emissions are so minuscule globally that even if we returned to the earth, and embraced subsistence farming with hoes and rakes after bumping off every farm animal, it would scarcely make a measurable difference to the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the world’s atmosphere.

The United Kingdom is responsible for a tiny 1.2 per cent — and falling — of greenhouse gas emissions. China, by contrast, accounts for some 27 per cent. That means its emissions are approximately 22 times greater.

At the moment the Chinese economy is about four-and-ahalf times as large as ours. But because its population is about 20 times the size, its per capita income is still much smaller.

China will very likely continue to grow at a much faster rate than Britain, so its carbon emissions will also increase, in absolute terms and possibly as a proportion of the world’s total.

Meanwhile, India, which at present speaks for about 6.5 per cent of global greenhouse gases, is beginning to expand very quickly economically, and is almost bound to become a significantly bigger polluter over the coming decades.

Rapid economic growth from a low level is not possible without quickly rising emissions. Look at Africa, where a number of countries are at last starting to show buoyant economic activity. The price that will be paid is growing greenhouse gases.

We may exhort these developing countries to control their emissions, as indeed we do, but it will probably have rather little effect. With some justice, their leaders can take a look at us, and say we got rich by polluting the planet.

My point is that nothing we do in this country by way of further reducing our emissions — which have already come down by 44 per cent since 1990, a barely equalled performance — is going to have a discernible influence on the overall situation.

OF course, it can be argued that bringing down greenhouse gases even by a jot is a good thing in itself. Moreover, setting a moral example can be effective, though I doubt it will win many converts in this case for the reasons I have mentioned.

But the fact remains that this country has to make its way in an increasingly competitive world, and it makes no sense to hobble our economy by making extra sacrifices that are barely going to register in the great scheme of things.

There is also an element of hypocrisy behind the target. If we stop making steel, for example, our emissions will drop, and so we’ll pat ourselves on the back for

being virtuous. But if we then import steel from China, we will contribute to an increase in that country’s emissions.

So you can see that I am queasy about Mrs May’s swansong. The danger is that she is tying us to an obligation which will make us poorer, while other countries get richer.

And while it is true that under pressure from Mr Hammond she has agreed that the UK ‘ will conduct a further assessment within five years to confirm other countries are taking similarly ambitious action’, there is a danger in writing any commitment into the law of the land.

Look at what has happened to David Cameron’s guarantee that the foreign aid budget should be set at 0.7 per cent of gross national income. It has meant that, while most Whitehall departments have suffered severe cuts, ever greater sums are lavished on aid (£14 billion a year at the latest count), some of it wastefully.

Surely the last thing we need is another legal requirement which, although it might serve to impoverish our children and grandchildren, assumes the character of unalterable holy writ in the minds of successive governments.

Can’t we be a little less goodygoody and a bit more hardheaded? I understand why Theresa May should want to leave a legacy so that we can remember her long after Brexit is forgotten. Let’s hope, though, that we don’t think of her for the wrong reasons.